Strange Moments of Normality
by ooihcnoiwlerh
Summary: Nathan felt so normal at times like this, like any loving father. It was times like this that kept him alive..." and such moments could be taken away so easily.


I do not own Repo! the Genetic Opera. It belongs to creators Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich.

Funny note: This actually started off as a school assignment for AP Language/Composition when I was asked to write a narrative. In the midst of writer's block, I churned out something based off of an idea I had for an actual fanfiction. I decided now would be as good a time as any to post it, so I've brought back in all bits I edited out for fear of copyright infringement (Shilo's name was Sara, and there was merely an implication of Nathan being a hit-man. I feel like such a loser, by the way, so no need to reinforce the feeling if you review.) And yes, this story takes place when Shilo is five.

Nathan felt so normal at times like this, like any loving father. It was times like this that kept him alive, and reminded him that in spite of his work, in spite of whatever adrenaline rush he received from carrying out his work as nothing more than a glorified hit-man, he was still a human being, still loved and seen as a hero, a doctor, by at least _someone_; the person whose opinion of him was more important than anyone else's.

"Are you ready for your story, Shilo?" he called from the other side of the door, and after several moments of silence assumed that his daughter had either shaken or nodded her head in response, and added, "Is that a yes or no?"

"Yes, Daddy!" came the high five-year-old chirp, and as he opened the door he saw she was in her nightdress, something that more closely resembled a frothy, frilly baptismal gown that nearly drowned her almost-abnormally little frame (his fault, and another thing over which to feel guilt every time he looked at her) her hands folded across her abdomen as she lay under the covers, her wig still in place. In the dress, in the classically constructed little bed, watching him expectantly with the most enormous brown eyes (_so like her mother's_) she looked like a Victorian doll, and the sight made him smile as he sat down on the edge of the bed, keeping the precious picture book hidden behind his back, unsure of what his little Shilo's reaction would be; she was unpredictable that way. Like her mother.

"You ready for a little…" he brought the book to view with a flourish "…Humpty Dumpty?"

Shilo's reaction was to cock her head at the book, frowning. "Who's Humpity Dumpity?" she asked. The tiniest of hands, still pudgy with baby fat, glossed over the multiple, grinning little storybook characters, clearly wondering which one was this strange 'Humpty Dumpty.'

It wasn't a negative reaction by any means, so Nathan said, "That's what we're going to find out!" and opened the book, allowing his daughter to reach out and touch the pages, as if to make sure they were solid, real manifestations. She traced the pictures as though they were Braille, and while she was perfectly capable of reading the story—most of it anyway—she preferred the sound of her father's voice and his inflections, more soothing than any radio announcer.

"This is a bit of a short one," Nathan warned, flipping through the table of contents, reached the page, and winced at the realization that this took up only one page.

"_Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall_," he began, glancing at his daughter like, _will you remember that? A wall! _"_Humpty Dumpty had a great fall! All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again!_"

Shilo's eyes widened and her little hands clutched and wrung at the blankets. "Humpity…fell apart?" she whispered, horrified

Nathan, encouraged, nodded solemnly. _After showing her the accompanying picture, he could calm her down with a funny little poem, maybe elicit a few giggles from her before tucking her in for the night ._ "Here's the proof," he said, showing her the illustration.

Shilo's horror evaporated in the instant she saw the colorful broken eggshells surrounded by apple-cheeked knights and grinning horses in tapestry saddles. Wrinkling her nose, she said, "Where's Humpity Dumpity?"

"I, Uh…Humpty Dumpty is the egg, see?" he tried restoring some kind of fresh emotion by gesturing towards the shattered eggshell. "And the king's men and horses" he brought a hand to ghost over the entire picture "can't put him back together."

Shilo shook her head, as if her father had it all wrong. "Humpity Dumpity wasn't an egg," she informed him.

Nathan was taken aback. "Of…of course he's an egg," he said, laughing off some of his surprise, "Don't you see the little shell pieces…"

"It doesn't say he's an egg," Shilo groused, pouting, and Nathan realized, reading the passage again and for the third time, in spite of his childhood knowledge that this poor little Humpty Dumpty was an egg, _By God, she's right. _

"I…" he stared down at the picture book, jarred—not for the first time in the past five years—by her daughter's way of thinking, and set the book down, front-first, on the bed beside him. He didn't want to read anything else from this particular book anymore.

"That was a stupid story," Shilo added, and he supposed he agreed.

"What story would you like to hear?" Nathan asked, and his daughter shrugged in response as though no story she'd heard before would be sufficient, and he almost gave up. He'd gone to medical school, not a liberal arts college, for Christ's sakes! He didn't know how to make one up off the top of his head.

…Unless…

"Shilo," he said slowly, "Have you heard of the tale of the Triple Bypass Adventure?" and knew that of course, she hadn't. And, of course, she shook her head; amazed at the exotic-sounding new words she would very likely stumble over if she attempted to pronounce such terms. "How about the Pulmonary Artery Fairy?" The puzzled, fascinated expression on Shilo's face encouraged him far more than any fear of a shattered man ever could.

"Well," Nathan began, "It all started with a group of bandits; all these bad guys who looted all the mineral deposits—uh, gold and gems—from the nearby kingdom and littered the arteries—the trees and bushes, but here they were called arteries—of the Forest of the Heart with all this trash, and that poisoned the fairies of the Forest, especially its King…" he paused, and amended, "its princess, the Pulmonary Artery Fairy…" and from there he told her about the Adventure of the Triple Bypass, animatedly filling in the voices of the bad guys that clogged the arteries but spurred the Adventure in the first place, and by its end he was proud to see his daughter enraptured. It was one resemblance between that wouldn't worry him. At 'the end,' Shilo clapped and cried, "Yaaaaay!" and he knew it wasn't 'the end' for which she applauded.

_My daughter, _Nathan thought with a most typical pride. _She's already going to be a big science enthusiast. Such a bright decision. _He smiled and then he laughed; she was the only thing that could make him laugh these days, unless he was…

Nathan closed his eyes against the incoming image that came at him from under his lids, the image of a woman bleeding to death in the street; a woman who hadn't kept up with the payment plan on her latest breast enlargement. The enlargements she could live without—the muscles he severed and the blood he had spilled she could not. Even if it wasn't a vital organ they missed, no one ever survived him

_And that is _not_ something to think about now, Nathan. Push away the nasty thought. Push it waaaaaaay back. _He opened his eyes, swallowed hard, and tried to laugh off the feeling of unease. No need to fret; all his demons came back to him some way or another.

"Daddy?" Shilo said, sitting up a little further. "Are you ever going to get married again?" She had such a hopeful look in her eyes, an eagerness for a real, living mommy, that it was a harsh reminder that she'd never remembered her _real_, real mother, his wife, the only woman he would ever love.

His daughter could bring his demons back with no effort or intention at all.

_Never. Not even if I wanted to. Not a woman on earth would want to marry a man like me, not even for a child as precious as you._

Nathan tried to laugh, and it sounded false to his own ears—possibly to his daughter's as well. "I don't know, Precious. Only time will tell.

"So you liked that story?" he said, an instant diversion that worked even better than he thought when he saw his daughter's sudden grin, and Shilo's answer, an enthusiastic trill at a speed impossible to decipher with his grown-up ears, was interrupted by a ringing in Nathan's pocket. They were coming for him. Even before seeing the name on his satellite watch, he knew it was from the people who wanted to destroy his humanity with every moment.

"Ah…one second," he muttered, wanting instead to throw the fucking tether of a device out the window, never answer to these people again, but answered anyway, because he had to. He walked to the other side of the room, turned away from his bewildered and possibly hurt daughter, and muttered, "_What_?" at Rotti Largo's plump, austere hologram face.

"I have an assignment for you, Wallace. A forty-two year old man. Name, address, and physical description have been faxed, along with the GeneCo property you need to repossess. He's expected to be at home. If not, we'll let you know." And then a click, and then the dial tone as Rotti's face disappeared into the confines of the watch—if only that could happen in real life, and then he felt everything slip away. He slumped forward on the bed, and even his daughter could see something was very wrong. Something she wasn't allowed to see.

"Daddy?" Shilo said, wringing her blankets again, peering at him with her mother's eyes. Often he felt like his daughter was part her mother's ghost, and was a living embodiment in the eyes. Each lie he told hurt more to tell than the last, but he wasn't allowed to stop providing them, so he jerked his head at her and smiled again, something that felt and probably looked uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry, Sweetie, but I have to go now. There's an emergency at the hospital."

Shilo looked forlorn—not for the patients, she didn't know any of the patients and so, at five, didn't much know how to feel sorry for what she didn't know and couldn't' see, but more for herself—and mumbled, "Okay. Thank you for the story, Daddy."

"Good night," Nathan said, kissed his daughter's forehead and took the picture book with him on the way out. He heard a little sigh of a "Good night" as he closed the door behind him. He couldn't let go of the doorknob. He wanted to go back inside and tell his daughter another fairy tale about another surgical procedure. He wanted this moment to be a father.

_Please, for the love of God, let me have this. Let me have this moment to be a human being for once. Let me stay with my little baby girl._

And he couldn't. He could never run away from his duties, because that too was what kept him and his daughter safe. It was a necessary evil that kept him from more than a few consecutive moments of happiness, and so he left the book on a table in the hall and went downstairs to collect his uniform, his instruments of repossession and the fax, growing colder by the minute. As he reached the cellar, he felt the corners of his mouth twitch upwards, an involuntary action to be sure, but he couldn't help but think

_Such a thankless job, this was._


End file.
